12-23-2000

TECHNOLOGY: Industry Gains Tech Workers; Internet Privacy Unresolved

Several industry-friendly high-technology laws were enacted during 2000.
One of these was an "electronic signatures" measure giving
online transactions the same legal weight as old-fashioned paper
contracts, and another giving a significant increase in the number of
temporary H-1B visas for skilled foreign workers. But these stand-alone
measures were largely overshadowed by election-year debates over
more-sweeping high-tech matters that yielded few-if any-new laws.


Take the controversial issue of online privacy. Numerous hearings,
committee markup sessions, news conferences, and newly formed coalitions
of lawmakers failed to produce any comprehensive legislation to protect
the online confidentiality of consumers' personal information.


In May, the Federal Trade Commission took the unprecedented step of urging
Congress to enact new online privacy laws that would work in conjunction
with the industry's efforts to regulate itself. But Republican
congressional leaders opted to tread softly and argued that Congress
should give self-regulation efforts more time to take hold before enacting
far-reaching privacy measures that could hinder consumers' ability to make
full use of the Internet.


Most Democrats sided with the FTC's call for new privacy laws and lamented
Congress's failure to act. "I regret that this Republican-led
Congress has not chosen to act on even one of the multiple legislative
proposals protecting consumer privacy during the 106th Congress,"
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., told his colleagues in December in a floor
statement. "Unless we decide that privacy is worth protecting-and
soon-the erosion of our privacy rights will become
irreversible."


But while GOP leaders balked at comprehensive Internet privacy legislation
during 2000, they did agree to some smaller steps to protect online
consumers. The omnibus appropriations bill enacted in the final days of
the session included a provision to prohibit federal agencies from using
any of the funds they receive under the bill to collect personally
identifiable information from individuals who access their Web
sites.


Republican leaders also tried to tack the so-called Amy Boyer's Law onto
the spending package. The provision-named after a woman who was murdered
by someone who tracked her down after obtaining her Social Security number
on the Internet-would have prohibited the sale of individuals' Social
Security numbers without their consent. But Republicans gave up on pushing
the measure after consumer groups, congressional Democrats, and the
Clinton Administration argued that it would not do enough to protect
consumer privacy.


The omnibus spending bill also included a controversial provision
requiring all schools and libraries that receive federal E-rate funds,
which are used for low-cost Internet access, to use filtering software
that would block children's access to online depictions of pornography or
other "harmful" material. "While schools and libraries
across the country increasingly use the Internet as a learning tool, we
need to ensure that pervasive obscene and violent material is screened out
and that our children are protected," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said
after passage of the spending bill.


But several interest groups, including the American Library Association
and the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that the filtering
provision would censor free speech on the Internet. These groups plan to
challenge the law in court on constitutional grounds.


Other late additions to the spending package included a federal
loan-guarantee program to improve rural satellite subscribers' access to
local broadcast television stations, and a scaling back of the Federal
Communications Commission's controversial plans to license new, low-power
FM radio stations.


Molly M. Peterson

National Journal